


are you dancing while I am asleep?

by muppetstiefel



Series: personal best. [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Childhood Memories, F/M, First Love, Graduation, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Prom, Time Skips, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27842659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: "“You guys are gonna make so many friends,” Stan is saying, and he’s crying now, and still Bill can’t move, because he’s right. In a way, it is over. They are leaving. Things are never gonna be like this moment again, the summers are never going to stretch endlessly in front of them. Nights in Stan’s car and I love you’s stuck in throats will no longer be enough."One of the best nights of Bill's life - and one of the worst.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Richie Tozier, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: personal best. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032387
Kudos: 9





	are you dancing while I am asleep?

“Who designed suits?” Richie asks, picking at a loose thread on the table cloth, practically vibrating in his seat. He looks ridiculous, with his pale blue and frills and Bill knows he’s going to regret the look in a few years but he’s happy now, clutching a beat up polaroid camera that belongs to Maggie, so he says nothing.

The gym is decorated similarly to Richie’s suit, pastel blue and filled with paper streamers that flow from the sky. Bill thinks it looks dejected and a little tacky, but the other students don’t seem to agree as they chat excitedly at neighbouring tables or – god forbid – dance on the ‘dancefloor’ that’s really just a cornered off square in the centre of the gym.

Bill nods sympathetically. “Someone who really hates c-comfort.”

He’s not a fan of his own suit either, with its slightly flared pants he inherited from his dad. He’s thrown a sweater over the top, in an attempt at comfort, but he still feels out of place and ridged.

“You two are just pussies,” Stan retorts. He’s dressed like he normally does, sat upright in his chair, back pressed against the comfortable plastic. He looks more at ease than Bill feels, and it’s not even his senior prom. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone else is dressed smartly too, for once. Maybe it’s the rum Richie keeps conspicuously adding to their punch.

Maybe he’s just enjoying this; the last time the three of them will be together, in the school gym, in the midst of people they hate.

“No, Stanley,” Richie is protesting and despite the fact that they’re leaving, that this is over, Bill finds himself laughing. “You’re just sub-human.”

Stan rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. It’s also fond when he kicks at Richie’s shins, causing the other boy to swear loudly.

“You guys said prom would be fun,” Stan is casting a look around the hall, nose upturned slightly as he takes in the conservative dancing and gaggles of girls with teased hair. He surveys Richie and Bill with judging eyes. “I think you lied.”

Richie scoffs, leg bouncing, shifting continuously in his seat. “Slow down Stanley, I never said prom was fun. I said we would make it fun.”

“Well,” Stan crosses his arms across his chest, “I’m waiting.”

His eyes catch Bill’s and for a second, he wants to rip the stupid camera out of Richie’s hands and take a photo of this moment, of the way Stan is looking at him, like they’re going to be like this forever.

He doesn’t. Instead he cuts through Richie’s whining – ‘I bring you alcohol, Staniel, is that not enough for you?’ – and pushes his chair back.

“St-stan’s right,” he says, which makes the other boy grin triumphantly, eyes seeking out Richie. He gets a middle finger in return. “This sucks. Why are we w-wasting time here?”

“Some of us spent money on looking this pretty, Big Bill,” Richie is protesting but it’s half-hearted, because even he’s smiling, already half-way out of his chair.

“What are you thinking?” Stan is asking, with a soft sincerity that Bill thinks, for a second, is reserved only for him.

He shakes his head, already starting backwards out of the gym, “Just truh-trust me.”

They’re sat on the edge of the quarry. Richie has his legs over the edge, smoke and hot breath clinging to the outline of his silhouette, looking almost cool if it weren’t for the way he keeps yelling insults off the edge, like the quarry or any of Derry can hear him.

“Yo, Derry. You suck!” his words stick a little in his mouth, which is thick with alcohol, but they’re still undeniably audible, as he flips off the outline of the trees which sit below.

It’s cold out, Bill can feel it in his bones, but there’s warmth in the side of his arm, where Stan is pressed up against him. His arm is numb, and he’s been sitting on his foot for the last twenty minutes, but he still doesn’t shift, doesn’t move away from the warmth, or the way the two of them, in that moment, overlap perfectly.

Stan scoffs a little at Richie’s heckling, nose crinkled, eyes tilted towards the sky. He looks delicate, finely painted, in the quickly dying light. His hand is curled around the alcohol-filled thermos, his suit jacket folded perfectly at his side, top button and tied still sat in place. It’s cold, but still, when they had arrived here, he had stripped himself of his jacket before sitting down. Bill had instead reached up tug his tie out of place, Richie ambushing him and tying it around his forehead so tightly he feels like his brain is being squeezed out.

“Why are we here, Bill?” Stan’s voice is soft, but still startling. He’s looking at Bill, really looking, so close together his nose is nearly brushing against Bill’s lips. They’re not sat that far from Richie, but with Stan’s voice soft and considered, a reverent whisper, he won’t hear them.

Bill smiles, almost involuntarily, and shrugs, twisting away from Stan before he gets the urge to say _I love you_ again. It’s written in his face, he’s sure of it, written in the way he breathes, and the way he laughs but still he can’t say it to Stan because everything is so fragile in the palm of his hands and he doesn’t want to break it.

“It’s o-our place, isn’t it?” he asks, not sure why he’s not sure in the truth of that anymore. Maybe it’s because they’re leaving, him and Richie, leaving Stan behind, leaving him in this place.

But Stan just hums an affirmative, pressing himself further into Bill, until the other boy’s arm snakes around his shoulder and pulls him closer. It feels fleeting, but he doesn’t care. He just squeezes tighter and doesn’t let go.

Bill doesn’t know how long they’re sat intertwined, eyes pressed shut, Derry blocked out temporarily. He does, however, start when Richie throws an arm over his shoulder and squeezes, grip merciless and not nearly as gentle as Stan’s. “This is gay,” he sighs, but doesn’t make any attempt to break out of their tight hold.

“Beep beep Richie,” Stan mumbles into the collar of Bill’s shirt, nose pressed against his bare skin. Bill’s would be unsure if he’s even still breathing, if it weren’t for the way his heart’s beating against his rib cage, angry and aching. It can’t be over, but Richie is pulling away and throwing himself across the grass, and Stan is uncurling from his side, sitting back by himself, arms crossed against his chest tightly.

Bill tips his head back, attempting to get himself to breathe, deeply, fully. He doesn’t know if he’ll remember to breathe when he’s not in Derry. Can’t remember the last time he had to breathe without Stan and Richie at his side. It hurts his lungs already, like Siamese triplets being severed, separated.

“You packed yet?” Stan’s emotions are inscrutable under the question. Bill looks up when the flask is pressed into his hands, but sees the question is not directed at him, but Richie.

He shrugs, hair obscuring his vision, glasses fogged by the heat of the alcohol in his cheeks. “What’s the rush?”

“You are leaving, aren’t you?” Stan probes again, voice searching for something it can’t quite grasp.

Another shrug. “I mean, probably. I’ve got nowhere to be. Might crash with Bill for a bit in NYU. Travel.” When there’s no answer, Stan simply squinting at the edge of the quarry, he adds, “I’ve got to leave this hell hole sometime, Stanny.”

It’s Bill’s turn. Stan’s rounds on him with a quiet velocity, curls clinging to his forehead, slick with gel. He looks timid, but strong in the light, and Bill would reach out and press his thumbs against his cheeks if that were something friends did. “Georgie’s gonna miss you.”

“I kn-know,” his voice betrays him, clinging to the sides of his mouth, words hissing with the effort of their escape. “But he’s still got his other big brother,” he tries for a smile, which fails.

Stan is silent, mouth downturned slight, eyes fixed on the ground. The air cools around them, the alcohol wearing out of his skin and seeping into the ground. Bill reaches for the flask, and tips it into his mouth. It doesn’t make the moment any less sharp around the edges, Stan staring mournfully at the clumps of grass, Richie silently shifting. Bill opens his mouth to say something, but Stan beats him.

“I just hate that your leaving me.”

Bill yearns to gather him into his arms, soothe him like a child, ease the lines scrubbed into his forehead. His body freezes, and instead it’s Richie that scoots closer, thrusting an arm around his shoulder and pressing his head against his shoulder. “You’re next, Stan the Man. One more year and then you can go find Big Bill in New York or come to Europe or some shit with me.”

Stan laughs, a watery, pathetic laughs, leaning into Richie’s touch with full force. Bill can’t make himself go to him, no matter how much he wants to. Can’t make himself promise anything he can’t keep. Can’t hurt Stan, but can’t comfort him either.

“You guys are gonna make so many friends,” Stan is saying, and he’s crying now, and still Bill can’t move, because he’s right. In a way, it is over. They are leaving. Things are never gonna be like this moment again, the summers are never going to stretch endlessly in front of them. Nights in Stan’s car and _I love you_ ’s stuck in throats will no longer be enough.

“Of course we are,” Richie is replying, his laughter straining in his mouth, “Look at us! It’s not gonna change this, Stanny. You’re always gonna be our best friend.”

Bill stammers out a “yes” and Stan smiles, and it’s all that matters.

Richie is pulling away, hauling Stan to his feet then grasping at Bill’s hands and pulling him up too, the three of them swaying on a mixture of alcohol and melancholy. He doesn’t let Bill’s hands drop from his grasp, reaching for Stan’s too and pulling the three of them into one heap. “Forget the future!” he’s shouting, and Bill’s laughing, and Stan is too, despite the tears shining in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. This is prom! We should be dancing!”

“There’s no mu-music, Richie-” Bill begins to protest, but it’s no use because Richie is throwing their hands in the air and twisting like someone is blasting Elvis. Bill doesn’t hold back the bubble of laughter in his throat, instead clutches his hands harder and reaching for Stan’s. They fit his perfectly.

He screws his eyes shut, and dances, until his legs burn and his suit trousers are stained green with grass stains. Dances until he forgets about leaving, and instead can only think about Stan, about loving him, and this, and their childhoods, and his home.

Later, his body pressed up against Stan’s, hands intertwined, saying to some phantom music, his mouth nearly closes around the three words, letting them free into the air. Instead, he chokes on them, and says, “You’re my best friend.”

“And you’re mine,” Stan replies, face pressed against his neck, words obscured by the darkness.

It is enough.

* * *

His collar is itchy. He pulls at it with two fingers but it stubbornly refuses to give, held firmly in place by his black tie. He feels suffocated under the weight of the suit. He feels suffocated for a lot of reasons.

He feels a hand clasp his shoulder and tears his eyes away from the centre of the dance floor where Stan should be with his wife, if it weren’t from the fact that he has seemingly vanished.

The hand is sturdy and grounding and for a minute he thinks it’s Richie until he hears the voice. It’s smooth; personable.

“You okay?” the voice – Mike – asks.

Bill nods tenderly, as if being careful not to upset a head injury and pulls back to look at Mike. He’s wearing a dark blue suit, just like all the other ushers, but his tie is gone, the tail end peeking out of his jacket pocket. He smiles warmly at Bill, claps him on the back.

He’s only just met Mike, but something about him possesses a gentle kindness that Bill falls into. The way he had greeted him at the door with a wide smile and shook his hand eagerly. The way he had said “oh, you’re Bill,” as though he were thrilled to meet him. the carefully considered way he had introduced him to Ben – another friend of _the groom_ – as a “childhood friend of Stan’s.”

Not that he hadn’t seen Mike’s wide smile before. He had, but only beaming at him through a phone screen, crammed into the frame of a Facebook picture. He had seen Ben too, and Eddie, though they are still yet to meet. He had seen them all from a distance, as that was how he lived life with Stan now. Distantly and through a screen.

Mike hands him a drink and he gratefully obliges, tipping half of it down his throat before he even notices what it is. Champagne of some kind. Not cheap, judging by the way it slips down with ease.

“Where’s Bev?” he asks Mike. He’s aware he should be small talking, that all he’s really said to Mike is his name and a compliment on his suit, but he can’t. the ceremony was hell, and if he doesn’t talk to someone (namely Bev) about it, he’s sure he’ll explode. Or start crying. Whichever’s more embarrassing and less polite.

Mike takes a slow sip of his own drink. He looks at ease here, amongst family members and friends of the bride – Patricia – that Bill himself doesn’t even recognise.

“She’s with Ben, I think.”

Curse Ben, Bill thinks. Curse Ben with his good lucks and his soft puppy dog eyes. No, he’s happy for Bev, he is. He could just use her support right now. They’re not together anymore – the thought is laughable – but she’s still the closest thing he has to a friend of his own, and she gives fucking good advice.

He hadn’t even wanted her to come. She’d been there when he opened the letter, and insisted he take her. ‘I want to meet your friends,’ she’d said. ‘And see Richie again. Plus,’ she’d added, laying a hand on his forearm, ‘you can’t go to a wedding on your own.’

At the time he’d been grateful. Now he is determinedly less so. If he knew she’d just abandoned him, he’d have invited the girl from his script-writing class. She seems nice, with her girlish laugh and hair always slightly curled at the ends. Plus, Bill bets, she’d never abandon him at a wedding.

“Richie?” he asks helplessly instead. He likes Mike a lot, but he’s dying for another drink and a talk with someone who understands.

Mike must sense this too, because he takes Bill gently by the forearm and guides him towards the back exit. It’s smooth, Mike leading him, Bill following like a helpless puppy. He could get used to it.

They find Richie outside, smoking a cigarette that has nearly burnt out, one foot pressed against the wall. On anyone else it would look cool, but it just makes Richie look lame, and noticeably gangly. There’s someone tucked awkwardly on the steps next to him, knees bent, arms wrapped around them. He looks uncomfortable, eyes shifting around the bins that crowd the small exit out back. He’s in the middle of saying something, but Bill can’t hear what. He’s too busy focusing on the way he’s holding two beer bottles, gesturing one of them emphatically towards Richie.

Neither of them notice Bill and Mike’s arrival, too engrossed in what sounds like heated bickering. Mike clears his throat until the two of them finally cast a look over their shoulders.

“This stray puppy yours, Tozier?” Mike says, slightly smirk playing at his lips.

Richie stubs the cigarette out on the wall and before Bill can react there are arms ensnaring him, pulling him out of the doorways warmth and into the dark courtyard.

“Big Bill!” Richie practically screeches in his ear. Up close the stench of alcohol is undeniable, and Bill wonders when Richie started drinking.

He laughs anyway, and slaps Richie’s back a few times, to try and exude some good spirit. He must fall short, because Richie is pulling back to survey him and his eyes are so full of ‘are you okay?’ that he has to look away.

“Been a long time,” he says instead, eyes shifting between the three men who are now crowding him. “You still in Ohio?”

The unidentified man – who must be Eddie because he’s short and faintly anaemic, just like how Stan described him – snorts, but offers no further comment.

Richie shakes his head. “Nah, not for a while now. I’ve been up in LA, chasin’ dreams, charmin’ girls.”

It’s Bill’s turn to snort. Richie doesn’t even try to look affronted, just snags his beer off Eddie and takes a gulp.

“Shouldn’t you be writing your speech?” That’s Mike, voice of reason, voice steady and playful.

“You haven’t written your speech yet?” Eddie is saying, poking at Richie’s arm in annoyance. “You told me you’d written it weeks ago!”

Richie holds his free hand up defensively. “I’m good at improv!”

“No you’re fucking not! You flunked the class!”

“I was too good for the class, Eds.”

Bill feels anger flare up in the pit of his stomach. Richie has no right to feel burdened by being Stan’s best man. Bill would give anything to be up there, at the wedding party table, making the speech.

No actually, he would give anything to be up there, at the wedding party table holding Stan’s hand, but that’s beside the point.

He can faintly hear Richie and Eddie bickering, and can feel the cold biting at his skin but he can’t think about that because he’s thinking about Stan and how solemn he looked saying his vows. Bill couldn’t even look at him directly, like an eclipse. He was scared of what might happen, that he might end up at the front waving his arms about, declaring the two of them should not get married.

He didn’t do that. He sat politely, watched the bride and squeezed Bev’s hand tightly when Stan had walked past them.

“Besides,” Richie is saying, “What do you even say about Stan the Man? ‘He always keeps his shirts well folded.’ ‘He never laughs at any of my jokes.’”

“You could say he’s the best friend you’ve ever had.”

Bill feels three pair of eyes shift to him, and he instinctively folds his arms across his body. He doesn’t meet Eddie or Mike’s eyes, too afraid of what he’ll see. Pity? Knowing? Some emotion he doesn’t want to see written on a strangers face.

Instead he watches Richie. His easy smile falters for just a second and Bill sees only concern. He knew he shouldn’t have come, he shouldn’t have come, he never should have come-

“Bit too sentimental for me,” Richie jokes, slinging an arm around Bill’s shoulder. The shift of weight is welcoming, and even drunk Richie does a good job of drawing attention away from Bill. Maybe even a better job than when he’s sober. “Where’s darling Bev? I’ve been missing her.”

“She’s with Ben,” Mike speaks up from where he’s still stood inside the doorway. His front button has been worked open now and when Bill looks up he’s smiling softly, eyes kind and gentle.

“We better go save her then,” Richie starts inside, beckoning to Eddie and Bill over his shoulder, “Pip pip, good fellows! Not a second to lose!”

Eddie rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but still he follows. The two of them remind Bill of a dog and its owner. He’s just not sure which way round.

The four of them head back into the suffocating warmth of the venue. Mike and Eddie are leading, walking at a freakishly fast pace, leaving Richie and Bill trailing behind.

“Where’s Georgie?” Richie asks, and Bill feels his heart drop through his rib cage because he’s got his serious voice on it.

“It’s George now,” he corrects automatically, before stopping himself. Richie surveys him, mouth tilted into a smile but eyes glazed. “He was going to come, but he had a college thing. Said it couldn’t be missed.”

“Shame,” Richie says, like it genuinely is. Like he’s seen Georgie since he was seventeen and smoking pot with Bill and Stan in the Denbrough basement. Georgie had found them out, of course. He always did.

Bill doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. He realises it’s a mistake when Richie opens his mouth again.

“Have you seen Stan?”

“Yeah, I do recall seeing him. Maybe when he was at the alter?”

Richie rolls his eyes and yeah, sure, Bill deserved that. He keeps his gaze focused straight ahead, on the slope of Mike’s shoulders and the back of Eddie’s neck.

“Very funny. Have you seen him on his own? Spoken to him?” Richie tries again. Bill can feel a lump working its way up his throat, forcing its way out, so he stays silent and just shakes his head.

“Bill…” Richie sounds disappointed, which just isn’t fucking fair. It’s Bill’s job to be disappointed when he catches Richie doing something stupid. It doesn’t work the other way round.

“When would I have had the chance?” he insists, doing his best to round on Richie as they carry on walking. “On his way back up the aisle?”

Richie shoves him with his shoulder, a little too hard to be playful. “Maybe when you were moping around the reception on your own?”

Bill can feel his collar tightening. He needs something, anything to deflect from the way his face has darkened in colour and his throat has gone tight and restricted.

“Have you gotten off with Eddie yet?” he asks Richie wryly.

The shove he gets in return is anything but friendly.

They locate Ben and Beverly with ease. They’re sat at a table on the outskirts of the dance floor, heads nearly pressed together with the proximity they are leaning into one another. Bev looks up when she sees – more like hears – Richie coming. She pushes herself out of her chair just in time to catch him as he throws his full weight into her arms. They’ve only met once or twice but there is something unfiltered about the way they fit together. Bill would suggest they should date, if it weren’t for the way Richie looks at Eddie.

“Where have you been all night, Rich?” Bev pulls back, steadying hands on his shoulders, beaming.

Richie shrugs, pulling back slightly to clap a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Best man duties, I’m afraid. It’s a cross I must bear.”

“He was smoking out back,” Eddie chips in, and Bev mock-gasps.

“Without me, Tozier?”

Bill is barely listening. He’s searching for someone else among the family members and drunk 20-somethings too old to be getting this drunk. He reaches for a glass of something and finds comfort in the way it burns his throat. He’s dimly aware of the others laughing, of countless introductions and the way Bev presses some of her body weight against Ben, but he’s not listening to any of it.

He’s searching for Stan instead. A man should not be so hard to find at his own wedding.

“You okay?” Mike’s voice is rough but soft, and it’s grounding. He doesn’t even know when Mike pulled away from the group, but he must have because he’s stood over Bill’s shoulder now, presence reassuring.

Bill nods, scrubbing his palm over his face. “Yeah, I just need a drink.”

Mike fixes him with a look that says ‘no you don’t’ which really isn’t fair because they’ve just met. Bill stares over his shoulder instead, where Richie and Bev are pushing their way into the centre of the dance floor, Ben and Eddie trailing behind.

Mike follow his gaze, turning around. “You want to dance?”

“No, I-”

But Mike has his palm outstretched now, and he’s grinning in a way that Bill finds he can’t resist. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

So Bill takes his hand and allows himself to be pulled through the crowds and into the crappy make-shift dance floor. They find the others quickly, from where they seem to have formed a dance circle, all four of them half-singing to the lyrics and jumping slightly to the shitty 70’s dance tracks. Bill finds himself singing too, leaning on Bev’s shoulder, still gripping Mike’s hand in a vice grip. He feels dizzy, exhilarated.

He wishes Stan were here.

Then Mike is pulling him away from the circle, further into the crowd of dancing aunts and throwing their interlocked arms high, high into the air. He’s grinning, and Bill can feel it mirrored on his own cheeks. He’s spinning, slow at first then faster, sweat crawling up his back and clinging to the shirt he borrowed from his roommate.

Mike never stops grinning. Bill never let’s go of his hand.

The rest of the night passes fine. He avoids the speeches and hangs out in the bathroom. Talks to Mike and Eddie and Ben. Let’s Bev sit on his knee and tells two old ladies that yes, they are dating. Drinks enough alcohol to forget that it’s Stan’s wedding, Stan who used to cry when he found a broken birds nest, Stan who used to kiss him in the backseat of his car, Stan who told him he would visit every weekend.

Bill doesn’t see Stan; not until he’s leaving, at least. He’s waiting outside as Bev makes the rounds, saying goodbyes and thank you’s to people she barely knows. Probably scrawling down Facebook names on the back of her hand.

He’s slumped on the steps, tie clutched in his fist, shirt unbuttoned down to his ribcage. He feels hot and sticky, but it’s probably just the alcohol working its way through his blood. He leans back on his elbows and tilts his head up, forcing fresh air into his lungs.

At first he thinks Stan is a vision. He’s still dressed impeccably, suit buttoned up, tie firmly fixed in place. His expression is inscrutable, as it always was to everyone else, but now it’s closed off to Bill too.

His hair is too neat, Bill notices. Tamed with hair gel. Slicked back.

Stan raises a hand in greeting. He’s heading back from the main road, probably from helping some elderly relative into a taxi. His cheeks are flushed red with the cold, hands seeking shelter in his trouser pockets. He pulls one out to greet Bill.

“Hey Stan,” his voice doesn’t waver once, as he grits out the greeting with a forced casualness. Stan stops short, as though surprised Bill is talking to him. who can blame him? He probably didn’t even expect me to turn up, Bill reasons.

“Aren’t you cold?” Stan replies, greeting absent. His nose is scrunched as he surveys Bill. It could be disgust written into his expression, but Bill knows better.

He laughs, unashamedly and open. He’s louder than Stan, always has been, and he’s louder now, spurred on by alcohol and emptiness. “Maybe a little. Bev will be out soon, though.”

Stan nods, almost thoughtful. He takes a step towards Bill, hesitantly lowering himself to sit next to him. he doesn’t sprawl the way Bill does. He holds himself firm and upright, eyes fixed ahead.

“How’s the wife?” Bill asks, eyes tilted towards the sky. Looking at Stan right now would be like looking at an eclipse. Beautiful, but heart breaking. Also, fucking agony.

“Patty’s good,” Stan replies. Bill forgot how his voice could cut, simple sentences penetrating. He blows out a breath, watching the fog it causes dissipate into the night.

He replies with a hollow, “good,” and wishes his head would stop fucking spinning.

“Mike said the two of you met,” Stan is saying, eyes trained to the road. He looks like he did that night with the crashed car, except he’s no longer teetering on the edge of something. He’s fallen off the edge of it and landed perfectly fine.

Bill’s fingers itch for a pen. Or the camera Richie had at that stupid senior year prom.

“You trying to set us up, Stanley?” he can hear Richie in his playful but condescending tone. Stan doesn’t rise to it, just shifts slightly and focuses his eyes on Bill. He doesn’t look tired, not how he used to it in high school. His face is paper smooth and unblemished, the corners of his mouth turned up in slight amusement.

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

Bill laughs, but it gets lodged in his throat and when it escapes, it sounds more like a sob. Stan’s gaze doesn’t waver- it’s as determined and sure as it was when they were six.

“I’ve got a girlfriend. Tell Mike I’m very sorry.”

“Oh really?” Stan raises an eyebrow. “Because I’m sure I just saw Beverly with her tongue down Hanscom’s throat.”

“Gross, Stanley,” Bill pulls a face, and in a moment of bravery nudges him with his elbow. Stan doesn’t react, not really.

When he replies, his voice is quiet and meditated, softened around the edges.

“How about you, Bill? Are you good?”

Bill tilts his head towards Stan. His eyes are full of something, but Bill can’t place what. He thinks of kissing him, pressing their lips together and holding them there, until neither can keep it up anymore.

Instead, he looks away. Thinks instead of dancing with Mike, Mike’s smile, the comfort of security he had felt in his arms as he had steadied him on the sticky dancefloor. He isn’t Stan; he isn’t sharp lines, heated fights and gentle kisses. He isn’t grazed knees and comic books and bike rides. He isn’t nostalgia, or childhood. He isn’t the past.

He could be future, though. He could be.

“Yeah. I think will be.”

Stan smiles at him, hand snaking out to squeeze his knee cap. The feeling is so familiar and Bill leans into the touch until their shoulders knock together. He’s drawn to Stan like he’s the centre of gravity and he feels his head press against the other man’s shoulder, and Stan reacts, his own head pressing down reassuringly.

“Bill?” Stan is saying, voice scarcely a whisper, as if words will damage the silence of the moment.

“Mmh?”

“I’m glad you came.”

“Yeah, me too.”

_And he means it._

It is enough.


End file.
